No, I hadn't seen who produced Restrepo — but I just did. Looks like a fascinating film.

Re: “objectivity” — is this film “just the facts” or is it making a particular argument? Would love to hear your thoughts, Sig2noise.

I thought the Directors Message was quite telling:

“Directors StatementThe war in Afghanistan has become highly politicized, but soldiers rarely take part in that discussion. Our intention was to capture the experience of combat, boredom and fear through the eyes of the soldiers themselves. Their lives were our lives; we did not sit down with their families, we did not interview Afghans, we did not explore geopolitical debates. Soldiers are living and fighting and dying at remote outposts in Afghanistan in conditions that few Americans back home can imagine. Their experiences are important to understand, regardless of one's political beliefs. Beliefs are a way to avoid looking at reality. This is reality. – Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger”http://www.restrepothemovie.com/#/story

In other words: Restrepo looks like a war story without any context — i.e. why U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan in the first place. Clearly that history is part of the “reality,” though not the one that Hetherington & Junger chose to include.

And that 1959 NGM story about the U.S. Navy? That was all about context — about trying to explain the overall mission of the Pacific fleet. Not “day-to-day life on an aircraft carrier” – but why the U.S. projected its power so far from home. Seems like an entirely different POV than Restrepo.

Which is really my point: Everyone has a point of view. Even Chris Johns, whether he admits it or not.

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Hi. I'm Alan Mairson. I'm a freelance journalist based in Bethesda, Maryland; a former staff writer & editor for National Geographic magazine; and a member & lifelong fan of the National Geographic Society. For details about this project, please check out our inaugural post. For more about my advisers & me, see this. To feel the tight financial grip that Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation exerts on the National Geographic Society, peek at these tax returns. And if you'd like to share ideas, questions, or suggestions — or if you just want to heckle :-) — please contact me here. Thanks for stopping by.